


All These Wounds That I Can't Get Unwound

by caranfindel



Series: Season 11 codas [6]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Emotionally Hurt Dean Winchester, Emotionally Hurt Sam, Episode Tag, Gen, Hurt Sam Winchester, Post-Episode: s11e14 The Vessel, episode coda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2018-05-24 14:14:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6156230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caranfindel/pseuds/caranfindel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coda for 11.14, "The Vessel."</p><p> </p><p>Dean gets a second, just one second, to think everything's okay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All These Wounds That I Can't Get Unwound

Dean gets a second, just one second, to think everything's okay. Then he's hurtled from one nightmare into another. Then Cas turns into Lucifer and _jesus fuck,_ that's just too much to process right now - he can't think about the doomed people on the sub and he can't think about Cas and he can't think about Lucifer and Sam's crumpled on the floor, bloodstained and shivering, and here's something he can think about. Here's something he _has_ to think about.

He kneels next to his brother and checks him for injuries, but it looks like all of the blood is coming from his sliced-open palm. Sam's shivering so hard, his teeth are chattering. "What's going on?" he asks, as gently as possible, because if Sam's so scared he's _shaking,_ things are seriously fucked up. "Why are you shaking so hard?" 

Sam looks down at himself in surprise, then plucks at his shirt with his non-bloody hand. "Oh. Yeah. Cold. Lucifer stuck his hand in me. Son of a bitch is cold." 

"Lucifer _stuck his hand in you?_ " 

"My soul," Sam sighs. "He touched my soul. He was going to kill me, and tell you he used the power of my soul to bring you back, but that I didn't make it." He suddenly looks up at Dean in panic. "Oh god, Dean, he was going to kill me, he said you'd come back and find the bunker painted with my guts. I'm sorry." 

_Fuck._ Dean suppresses a shudder and scrubs his hand down his face. "Why are you sorry? It's not your fault." 

"I should have known. I should have been able to tell. Shit, Dean, I knew he was acting weird, but I thought it was just Cas, you know? But I should have known. I let him take you back in time and you were going to come back and I'd be dead and you wouldn't know. You wouldn't know he was Lucifer." 

Okay, can't think about that one, gotta shake it off. "But he didn't. He didn't, Sam. I'm here and you're here and we're fine. Hell, it could have been worse." He laughs, without any humor at all. "He didn't even have to bring me back. He could have just nabbed the Hand of God and left me there on the submarine." 

Sam's eyes widen and his breath hitches and okay, _crap,_ that was definitely the wrong thing to say. Seeing his fear brings back a flash of the fear in the eyes of the submarine crew, and suddenly the bunker seems too tight, too enclosed, too _underground_ \- he needs to get out. He stands up and reaches a hand to Sam, hauling him to his feet. "You," he says in his best _I'm-the-big-brother_ voice. "Go take a hot shower. You'll feel better. I'm going to go outside for a little bit, clear my head." 

... 

Sam meets him outside later, showered and bandaged, and in addition to the litany of things Dean's trying really hard not to think about, he also tries not to notice how Sam occasionally presses on his injured hand. 

He's not particularly successful at this. 

... 

Later, much later, many hours and most of a bottle of whiskey later, he tries to sleep but keeps dreaming of gore-splattered walls and cold water rushing in and cold hands clenched around splintered souls. Quietly padding into the library, he finds Sam, wrapped in more layers than usual and surrounded by a pile of books. The dim light emphasizes the drawn, haunted look on his face and he looks like he's just about to crash. 

"This is what you get for sucking down half a bag of coffee in one day." 

Sam looks up at him with a sad smile. "What's _your_ excuse?" 

"You turn the pages too loud. Keeps me awake." He settles into a chair next to Sam and peers at the ancient text. Banishing sigils. 

"I'm looking for something to protect against a specific angel. All the sigils we have keep _all_ angels out. But I thought, you know, if Cas..." He trails off. "Anyway. I can't find anything." 

Dean sighs. "No, let's just keep them all out. If Cas comes back, he can knock on the goddamn door. It'll be okay, Sam." No, it won't be okay, it probably won't ever be okay, but they're not going to deal with that right now. Sam reaches for his cup of tea and Dean counts the used teabags in his saucer, reads the label. "Hi-Caf? When did you start drinking that?" 

"Came in a sampler pack I bought a while ago," Sam shrugs. "Thought I'd give it a try, since we're out of coffee." 

"So you're _trying_ to stay awake." 

"Nothing gets by you, does it?" Sam leans over and runs his hands through his hair, leaving them clasped at the nape of his neck. "I just. I can't. I keep." He takes a deep breath. "I keep thinking about what you said, about how Lucifer could have just left you on the sub to die. And every time I close my eyes, I see it. I see him coming back alone, holding the Hand of God, and fucking _smiling_ at me with Cas's face, and I can't get it out of my head." 

Dammit, Dean _really_ wishes he hadn't said that. Luckily, he's smart enough to swallow everything else he could say right now. Like _I'm kind of glad Lucifer was willing to kill you, because that must mean he's not interested in you as a vessel._ And _I notice you're still pushing on your hand and it's kind of making me crazy._ And _watching all those people die, watching Delphine sacrifice herself for a greater cause, it makes me worry that I'm going to have to watch someone do that again, and it's going to be you._ And _I really worry about what Lucifer could have done to your soul when he had his fucking hand on it._

And _I wish we were on the road, sharing a hotel room, because when I wake up from a nightmare I could look over at you and see you're still there._

What he does say is "I, ah. I keep dreaming about him painting the walls with you. That's why I can't sleep." And Sam gives him the _oh you poor thing_ puppy dog eyes, and that ain't gonna fly right now. He puts on the big brother voice again. "Okay, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna go sit on your bed, and we're gonna watch a DVD, and we're not gonna think or talk about any of this until tomorrow. You with me?" 

Sam stands and stretches. "I'm with you. What do you want to watch?" 

"Anything but Raiders." 

... 

Halfway through season one of The Sopranos, Sam leans against Dean's shoulder and starts snoring lightly. And Dean allows it because of little brother privilege, not because feeling his brother warm and alive against him allows him to finally relax and drift off to sleep himself. Not at all because of that. 

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from [Time Stand Still](http://youtu.be/KGsQ5n9Qu0A) by Rush.


End file.
